


The Brightest Night

by Seedcity



Series: Futureghosts [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action & Romance, Body Horror, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Smut, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Hate at First Sight, Heavy Angst, Homophobia, Identity loss, M/M, Multi, Psychological Horror, Religion, Sequel, Slow Burn, Torture, Tragic Romance, War, perspective change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:25:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seedcity/pseuds/Seedcity
Summary: Gabriel Reyes is on his way to what he considers retirement in Panama when he is approached about a military program that could change his life forever. A shattered persona: Gabriel Reyes, or Reaper?Jack Morrison or Soldier:76? Four different beings collide in past, present, and future.To learn what is coming, they must see what came before. History revolves around the one left holding the gun.





	The Brightest Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovely reader. 
> 
> This fic is a direct sequel to my work 'The Desert Glacier.' Ideally if you don't ship McHanzo you should be able to skip it and still comprehend the story, but I don't know if I'm that talented. You may want to give it a skim if you desire a richer understanding of the mythos I'm cobbling together like a drunk kid on their eighteenth birthday party. 
> 
> Here you'll find my attempt to piece together the second part of a trilogy. Some questions get answered, some more get asked, some of my beloved OCs are returning, and there's lots of corny one-liners. If you're into that, if that floats your boat, if it tickles your pickle, keep reading.

PROLOGUE

It is cold here.

Cold like the blinking light at the end of a midnight country road. 

Cold pressing, weighing silence into his ears like a Mylar barrier. 

It is impossible to comprehend the ways in which he is stretched, strands of himself burdening every inch of his container. Contorted in on himself and yet also just passing straight through, no joints or bones or lips. No teeth or eyes. Or fingernails. 

The genie in the bottle, or the dwarf in the flask. Nothing about him is permanent, always changing, shuddering away from what once was, and his life slips away with each ephemeral, soulless breath.

What are the rules of such an existence? Without the hard glass tube, would he dissipate into an ether so thin he no longer officially exists?

He hears, or sees, footsteps. Heels against metal. They ring in his mind, echoing endlessly across the surface of his container. Urgent, and swift. Unbalanced, too. Injured. Soon after, a second pair. Less demanding. A patient gait. 

Whispers grow louder—louder being his first thought, quickly dismissed. The concept of volume is lost to one with no ears. He senses their speech, vaguely and lacking in direction. They are “audible” now; someone clears their throat. 

“Gabriel.” 

He surges forward, careening up against the glass of his container, shifting and churning before settling back into the black nothingness that consumes him. _Don’t call me that._

She doesn’t hear him. Or, she ignores him. This time, he notices the Irish accent. “My people inform me that you have been in this condition for weeks. I wonder if you feel more powerful now.” 

He would smile. He imagines baring his teeth. _Yes._

“Either way, you’re useless incorporeal like that. Snap out of it.” 

He roils again, but the the other voice that speaks now must belong to the wounded walker. “I don’t think he can hear you. He’s been unresponsive. Like I said, it’s _kind_ of you to join us _now_.” 

“Well, we both found what we were looking for, didn’t we? Also, I’m not the one whose mission cost tens of personnel, an entire jet, and Harris.” 

“No, yours just cost time.” The sneer in her voice is implacable. 

He surges once more, reaching the very top of his container, then thrashing downward in an arcing sweep. 

“He doesn’t normally do that,” says the sneering one. 

“Hmph.” The Irish one taps her foot.

He bubbles discordantly. 

The foot-tapping ceases. “Well, maybe I need to find out if ‘he’s’ not become an ‘it,’ fusing impromptu like that.” 

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” says the sneering one. She turns on her heel and begins clacking out of the room. 

“And, Irene?” 

“Hm.” 

“I’m not afraid to break your leg again.” 

A snort, then the footsteps resume and fade. 

The silence, the cold, resumes as well. Thoughts drift aimlessly in and out, as if he’s holding his hands out in front of a waterfall. Gabriel. Names. Irene. Harris. Talon. Frustration gets the better of him, and he attempts another feeble surge against the top of his container. 

“Do you even know your name anymore?” says the foot-tapper. “You’re in a predicament, aren’t you?” 

He thoughtlessly expands, cracking the glass. 

She steps back. “Now, how are you going to piece yourself together if you’re in the ventilation system, _a chara_?”

Attempts to shrink himself do not avail. 

“When faced with a setback, Gabriel, you must challenge your assumptions. What you did before will no longer work.” 

He roils under the spoken name, weighing him down as a cinder block in a dead lake. _Do_ not _call me that!_

“Hmm.” She gets to work, fiddling with what feel like various instruments and objects, mumbling to herself as she goes.

He knows what the body does. What it looks like. Why can’t he make it? Form it? Why can’t the nothingness just make fingers again? He wishes to curl hands around throats. He wishes to see the life ebb from the veins of everything around him, and drink the despair. Again he throttles his form, cracking through the container and spilling through the grating on the floor. He can feel himself drifting away. 

“Gabriel, what have you done?” She begins to move nervously and quickly. 

_It’s REAPER._ He blacks out the ceiling, straddling the lights, coming so close to feeling their heat. One of them crashes to the floor below, and he feels the ceiling crack against his mass. 

_That isn’t right._

“Gabriel, enough!” 

_I am him. I’m Gabe._

He feels himself fall again, drenching the metal grating and slipping through, tumbling like dead leaves onto the floor below. Alarms begin to blare. The pink light that burns him and confines him returns, boiling him alive. 

_Who am I._

He asks of himself so hard, so furiously, that he extends outwards even further, crashing up against the walls and breaking windows. Something violent collapses below, following by terrified shrieking. The pink light burns, but it no longer stops his ever-growing reach. His urge. His mission. 

_I am the Reaper._

“Reaper,” says a calm voice. A slick voice, like velvet through sand. Deep, but hollow. Accented. 

_No, that isn’t right either._

“Collect yourself.” 

The glass stretches down again, attempting to confine him. He charges against it, smashing it. He feels blood spill into himself, and revels in the sanguine glory. 

_Yes it is._

“Don’t you think it would be more advantageous to assume a human presence? A cloud of dust can hardly give orders, and you’ve made yourself a big, loud target,” says the deep voice. 

_I can’t._

“You don’t remember how?” 

_It doesn’t work._

“Change your strategy.” 

_It doesn’t fucking work._

“Start from the beginning,” he says as the walls close around him again, the pink light zipping through his form like a million bullets. He screams, so loud, so far, with so much to lose. 

The panicked footsteps of several others clamor into his space, and he shudders violently into the cold air. 

“Seal off the room,” the smooth and hollow voice orders the others, and sounds of grinding metal, squealing against the desperate turmoil of his thoughts. Even again he surges, billowing like thousands of fists against the metallic walls. 

The footsteps are gone, and he is alone again. Bubbling, primordial, and chaotic, he furies in his isolation, but remembers the words. 

Breathed and metered: “Start from the beginning.”

Who are you?

**Author's Note:**

> "Thank you" is such a boring phrase, so I'll say you have my undying respect and gratitude for engaging with this work. I have so much to learn and I'm so glad I get to do all that messy scribbling poop-on-the-walls in front of an audience. :)


End file.
